The Clinical Epidemiology Core (Core C) will support the clinical studies in this Center Grant application that are included in three of the projects and several of the pilot studies. Dr. Marc Moss will be the project leader of this core. He made the sentinel observation that chronic alcohol abuse increased the incidence and severity of ARDS in critically ill patients. He is also considered a national expect in clinical research methods in the critically ill as evidenced by his appointment to chair a symposium at the 2002 International American Thoracic Society meeting entitled, "Building the Critical Care Clinical Research Laboratory", and by his participation in the NIH-NHLBI Working Group on "Research Opportunities in the Clinical Epidemiology of Lung Injury and Critical Illness" in 2000. This Core will be primarily located at Grady Memorial Hospital but will routinely access the enormous quantity of critically ill patients in the 145 intensive care unit beds at the four Emory affiliated hospitals (Grady Memorial, Crawford Long, Emory University, and the Atlanta Veterans Administration). Dr. Moss has organized a cohesive team of investigators. These individuals draw upon the outstanding personnel at both the Emory School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. These individuals will perform all of the necessary steps required to effectively identify and enroll patients into properly designed and accurately analyzed clinical studies. The core will also be responsible for ensuring that all institutional and federal policies regarding research involving human subjects are properly followed. This Alcohol and Critical Care Clinical Research Program has already been established and presently serves as an active working team. More importantly, this clinical core is a flexible system that can and will incorporate new members and encourage the growth, development, and implementation of new research protocols concerning novel hypotheses concerning the association between alcohol abuse and critical illness. i